Book review: All Day and A Night’ unravels tangled web of murders and mistakes

Sunday

Jul 27, 2014 at 12:01 AM

“ALL DAY AND A NIGHT,” by Alafair Burke. Harper. 350 pages. $26.99....

By Sam Coale

“ALL DAY AND A NIGHT,” by Alafair Burke. Harper. 350 pages. $26.99.

Linda Moreland’s a brassy, loud-mouthed lawyer, à la Nancy Grace on CNN, whose specialty is to investigate convicted felons and try to poke holes in the police procedures that put them in prison. She attacks confessions, personalities, eyewitnesses and people’s backgrounds in her ruthless, news-grabbing style.

Moreland hires Carrie Blank, a young lawyer whose half-sister Donna may have been killed by Moreland’s latest client, serial killer Anthony Amaro. Amaro kills women near Utica and then breaks their bones. He’s been in prison for 18 years but was convicted of only one murder in New York. But then psychological therapist Helen Brunswick is found murdered in her New York office Amaro-style.

Detectives Ellie Hatcher and J.J. Rogan are brought in by the assistant district attorney, Hatcher’s live-in lover, to re-examine Amaro’s case with fresh eyes. We then learn more about Carrie’s background, a scholarship to Cornell, the sweet guy Bill who’s now lieutenant governor, his father (a cop in Utica), strippers, hookers, mental patients, fudged files and addicts.

Alafair Burke writes with a clear, decisive style, nothing flashy but solid and authoritative, which keeps you reading as the entangled lives of her characters begin to unfold. She’s very good at probing psychological depths, exposed desires and needs, fears and dreams, as well as unruly instincts and long-festering hatreds and feuds.

Carrie’s half-sister was an addict and a part-time prostitute, not like the seasoned hookers Amaro usually went for. Could her death be linked to other circumstances? Who is the person sending anonymous tips to the New York cops? If Moreland can get Amaro out of prison, what’s she going to do with him? How well did the cops in Utica undertake their original investigation?